


for what it's worth

by realitywarpinq



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, Deleted Scenes, Depressing, Gen, Gun Violence, Havok - Freeform, Pre-X-Men: Days of Future Past, Sad, Serious Injuries, Vietnam War, War, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: First Class (2011), banshee - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21609091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realitywarpinq/pseuds/realitywarpinq
Summary: By the time Sean turns twenty-seven, he’s coming up on seven years serving as an infantry soldier in the US army in Vietnam.If only his professors could see him now; a mook with a gun and a bit too much conscience for his bosses’ liking – canon fodder – stuck in the war until it ends or he dies, simply because he’s got some majorly jacked up genes. Humans get to leave after the first year, if they want – Muties don’t.
Relationships: Sean Cassidy & Alex Summers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	for what it's worth

**Author's Note:**

> **trigger warning for death, war, violence and blood. and, like, descriptions of breathing?** idk i have anxiety and sometimes that kind of stuff freaks me out.
> 
> title is the name of an [anti-war buffalo springs song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bl-vbBnJ3I).

Sean Cassidy had never had much of a secondary education. Not even the finest private schools Ireland (or money) had to offer could penetrate the double-glazed walls of his think tank. He was declared a ‘waste of time’ early on by his professors, assigned seats at the back of every classroom so as not to disturb the boys who were ‘actually going to make something of themselves’.

Eventually, the novelty of uniforms and classmates and deadlines wore off. The only heir of the esteemed Cassidy family took to breaking windows and smoking cigars outside staff rooms, earning himself an expulsion from every school his parents found suitable for someone of their status by the time his eighteenth birthday rolled around.

By the time Sean turns twenty-seven, he’s coming up on seven years serving as an infantry soldier in the US army in Vietnam.

If only his professors could see him now; a mook with a gun and a bit too much conscience for his bosses’ liking – canon fodder – stuck in the war until it ends or he dies, simply because he’s got some majorly jacked up genes. Humans get to leave after the first year, if they want – Muties don’t.

Now, in the blistering heat of the Vietnamese jungle, every man in the squadron keeps close to the ground while Sarge establishes a radio connection with Air Control, eyes fixed on the grey-stoned remnants of what once must have been a Commanding Base. A round of bullets cut through the air above their heads from a gap in the crumbling rock’s first floor. Next to Sean, Roberts fires three shots in retaliation, for no other reason than to keep their targets in the building.

“Insurgents isolated,” Sarge says, rattling off the base’s coordinates into his walkie-talkie.

Air Control responds with “Copy that. Air strike approaching. Over.”

“Look alive, boys,” Sarge barks. “This shit’s coming down, time to unass the AO.” And the unit begins their retreat. The thick canopy above conceals them easily, but only when a rumbling overhead tells them the strike has arrived do they stop firing back towards the base. Sean throws himself to the ground along with the others, his free hand instinctively reaching out for Alex’s shoulder when the boom sounds. Alex does the same and the two men hit the dirt together. They feel the air shift around them as the shockwave reverberates through the dense ecosystem, rattling their brains around in their skulls.

Once the dust settles and the ringing in his ears recedes, Sean looks to Alex. His expression is serious, unfazed except for the muscle in his cheek twitching. They stand and quickly brush the soil from their faces and battle rattle.

“Alright, men,” Sarge says, wiping sweat from the back of his neck. “Back to the rendezvous point in a V-formation,” he gestures with his gun and free arm before checking his watch. “Ahead a schedule. Good work.” He sets off as the head of the arrow.

Each soldier grips his assault rifle tightly as the infantry restarts their trek through the underbrush, slipping into the commanded arrangement like clockwork. On the right wing of the V shape, Sean finds himself walking diagonally behind Alex, with Toynbee a way behind him on the left.

Sean treads lightly over brittle tree roots and between thick trunks, telling himself that more adversaries could be nearby. He uses the aching of his arms as he glares down the sight of his gun to distract from thoughts of whatever the fuck the grey-stone building, and the people inside, look like now.

Thoughts like those are a distraction. Distractions get you killed.

After an hour’s more walking, Alex stops, reaching a hand back to signal that the others should do the same. When Sean and the two men behind him freeze, Alex taps his ear and gestures to their right with the barrel of his M16. Sean strains his ears for any sounds of movement. A bird takes flight somewhere in the distance, Toynbee readjusts the gun in his hands, a twig snaps-

Roberts shoots a round at an area of foliage a couple of metres away. All the men fall to crouching positions as a heavy thud tells them at least one bullet found its target.

More shots rattle through the air, and the forest is alive with the sounds of yelling and gunfire. None of that matters, though, because Sean’s legs have snapped back from under him – he can’t see or taste or feel anything but pain as his head makes contact with the ground, cutting his cry of shock short. Blinding crimson flashes across his eyelids and the thunderous fighting stops, but Sean doesn’t care because his whole body is ablaze.

“Sean!” His eyes flutter open reflexively. Alex is above him, blurred and tinged with a blue hue, hollering words Sean can’t understand. His brain is screaming, everything is screaming.

His left leg. It’s burning, disintegrating from the inside out. Alex is shaking him, slapping his face and the sounds of his surroundings are a whirlwind rushing in his ears-

_“Sean!”_

_“Sarge - Cassidy’s down-”_

_“We need Gitter-!”_

_“-Fucking put pressure on it-”_

_“Keep a look out, more could be close-”_

_“Rip some of that and wrap it-”_

_“Fuck-”_

Everything is happening in snippets, like a projector showing a movie with scratched film, the scenes of chaos interrupted by brief times of darkness where Sean's pain ceases.

His body is tingling; he can feel his pulse shuddering through his body. Sean doesn’t remember how, but he’s on his back, arms at his sides. Looking down, he sees Toynbee knelt by his leg, which Sean is dimly surprised to find still attached to his body. Red stains the other man’s hands; he presses down on Sean’s leg with a clean piece of olive-coloured fabric and a guttural cry rips through Sean’s throat, his body convulsing.

Alex holds him down with his own bloodied hands, yelling obscenities at Toynbee and Roberts as though words alone can stop his best and longest friend’s pain.

Sarge appears in Sean’s murky vision. “What the hell happened?” he looks Sean over with an apathetic gaze.

Toynbee begins wrapping the fabric around Sean’s knee without looking up. Sean does everything not to scream in front of his commanding officer.

 _“Breathe, Sean.”_ Alex tells him forcefully. Blue meets blue, pain meets panic, and Sean lets out the breath he’d so desperately been holding.

Roberts speaks up breathlessly. “Ambush, from the right – we got ‘em though.”

“I can see _that_. Whole area’s one fuckin’ pile a ash!” Sean hears a walkie-talkie being unclipped from its holster. “I got one less pair a boots on the ground out here,” Sarge bellows upon connection with Air Control. The reception's crackling pulls at the nerves behind Sean's eyes. “Needin’ a medic. No way a truck could get down here - about ten away from rendezvous. Over.”

“Ambulance in the vicinity. Radioing coordinates. Over.”

“Roger that. Over.” His voice becomes peremptory. “A Cracker Box’s gonna be at our rendezvous point in fifteen. This man is not gonna die before they get there, understood? Summers, Toynbee – you’re gonna carry him there and Roberts and I will cover your asses."

A wave of nausea washes over Sean as he is hoisted off the ground. He blinks the feeling away, opening his eyes to see that they’ve reached the jungle’s outskirts. “-me, Sean,” Alex is saying, anxiety creeping into his gruff voice.

“I’m-” Sean’s vision darkens for a minute as he is lowered to the ground. “I’m awake.” He breathes finally.

“Scared us for a minute there, Red,” Sarge comments as the ambulance pulls over next to the jungle’s edge. It looks like a basic camouflage-coloured pickup truck, modified with green rope netting secured over the open back and emblazoned with a red cross on both doors.

The driver stays in his seat, but a man with dark hair and tanned skin hops out of the truck’s rear. He detaches a dark green canvas stretcher from its place along the truck’s side and lays it on the ground next to Sean. “How many shots?” he asks without looking up from his new patient, quickly but carefully pulling him onto the stretcher. Sean’s stomach spasms with the agony of being moved, while his lower half is now almost numb to the magma infiltrating his veins. Almost, but not quite.

“One, possibly two,” Toynbee twists the dial on his goggles’ left lens as he speaks. “Shin bone’s hit.”

 _Stop. Make it all stop,_ Sean thinks desperately. Being shot in this godless place seemed inevitable, but at the same time, impossible. Sean had only ever seen it happen to other people, it was always someone else. Someone from his infantry, his target, a faceless name floating through the barracks’ grapevine. Not him. The reality of a bullet having ripped through is own flesh isn’t computing. He doesn’t want it to compute, doesn’t want it to be his reality, but can’t think of anyone he’d want to take his place.

“It’s okay,” Alex tells him, but the words fall deftly on Sean’s ears, as they don’t seem to be for him. “Doc’s gonna fix this.” He takes hold of the handle by Sean’s head, lifting him onto the truck with the medic on the count of three.

The medic climbs into the back next to Sean and begins to untie Toynbee’s makeshift bandage. His inspection of the wound sends Sean’s senses into a frenzy; he can hear the pain, taste the burning and see the blood pumping through his temples.

“You-” the medic’s voice orders from somewhere in the distance. “Keep him awake while we travel back.” Alex is suddenly above him, the world is shaking beneath him and an engine roars in his ears.

 _“Hey,”_ Alex says, almost confrontationally, slapping Sean’s cheek roughly a few times. “Keep your eyes _open._ Um – okay – tell me where we’re going now.”

Sean doesn’t have time for Alex’s nonsense, not when he’s bleeding to death. “The fuck-k-kind of question’s that?” he replies through constricted breaths. “You know.”

“Yes, I know, you dumb bastard,” Alex replies irritably as the medic pulls open Sean’s field and fatigue jackets, pressing six small electrodes to calculated points on his chest, hooking him up to a handheld ECG. “I’m trying to get you concentrating on something other than your leg – Fuck, what’d you have to get shot for?” The truck speeds over a bump in the road, the jolt intensifying Sean’s nausea. He squeezes his eyes shut, only to have them pulled open again; a blinding light glares into his pupils one at a time before disappearing as quickly as it came.

“Minor head trauma from the fall,” the medic notes, putting the flashlight away. “I’m going to give you some pain relief now. Strong. Only temporary, should last until we get you to a drip.”

Sean looks at Alex, "Felt like keeping you on your toes," he forces out a grunt of amusement as the syringe injects the last drops of morphine into his system.

Numbness washes over him almost immediately, and, blissfully, the pain begins to dull with it. Sean takes in a deep breath, the renewed freshness of the warm air intoxicating.

For the rest of the journey, Sean’s world is hazy. Alex asks him questions; he tries to answer, but his mind wanders easily. He’s profoundly tired, but knows Alex wants him to stay awake, so tries his best.

At one point, he’s dimly aware of how much he wants to wear Alex’s aviators, perched atop his scraggly, ensanguined hair.

“Don’t die,” Alex says. Sean had apparently spoken aloud. “And you can wear ‘em as much as you like, Banshee.”

They both smile at the old nickname. They were just kids, then. The memories are so old they hardly feel real. A dream. That’s the last thing Sean remembers clearly through the tingling – and increased throbbing – of the morphine wearing off with every mile closer they get to base.

*

The next time he’s fully aware of his surroundings, he’s being lowered onto a cot in one of Tan Son Nhut Air Base’s infirmaries. By this point, the morphine has entirely left his system, meaning his consciousness is once again submerged in agony, and he feels hot tears running across his temples and into his ears. There are too many sounds – voices of medical staff, of Alex, the beeping of equipment, the thumping of his heart - for him to properly take in any of it.

Far slower than Sean would have preferred, the medic hooks him up to a morphine drip. It’s different to the last, not as strong. It’s seems steadier, somehow, he’s not completely whacked out this time.

The medic pulls up a stool by Sean’s cot. Sean’s trouser leg has been completely cut away to his mid thigh. There’s so much, so much blood. Seeing the grisly mess that had once been his leg, he reflexively grasps Alex’s wrist. Alex covers his brother’s pale hand with his own red-stained one, suddenly unable to look at the wound.

“I’ve removed the bullets,” The medic tells them. “I’m going to clean and stitch you up, alright?” he doesn’t wait for a reply before turning to pick his desired tools from the tray beside him.

Alex starts to say something, but falls silent as an officer strides into the tent, flanked by a woman in a similar uniform and a number of men dressed fully in black. He stands to attention, but doesn’t let go of Sean’s hand.

The man’s piercing blue eyes sweep across the room. “At ease,” he says once he notices Alex.

He has short, black hair, a handsome, angular face and the build of an experienced soldier. Among the decorations on his uniform indicating his services in Vietnam, Sean glimpses others. He’s a veteran of the Korean War, to be respected above everyone who isn’t, no matter their rank.

Sean squeezes his eyes shut as the medic sets to work. A deep breath, and he forces them open again. As long as he doesn’t focus on the medic and what he’s doing, the morphine’s buzz keeps the pain at bay.

A nurse has approached the man, whom she addresses as Major Stryker, and handed him a clipboard. “Information on everyone currently housed in this facility, as requested,” she tells him. He begins leafing through the pages, scanning their contents and unclipping ones seemingly at random.

“Thank you,” he dismisses her once he finishes, returning the clipboard but keeping hold of the sheets he removed. He turns to the woman he arrived with, his back to the room.

“Shipping home early, always knew you were a brokedick,” Alex says facetiously, but there’s a hitch in his throat, a thickness to his words that tells Sean that he’s really not as okay as the front he’s putting up suggests. Sean plays along, giving him a conceding smile.

Then Alex’s eyebrows knit together, and he looks serious, terrified for the first time since Sean hit the ground. He uses his free hand to retrieve the dog tags hanging around his neck, beneath his clothes. Swiftly, he pulls the chain over his head. “Look after these for me, will you?” he tells Sean, letting go of his hand long enough to ease Sean’s head through the chain and place the tag reading ‘SUMMERS, ALEX’ with the one emblazoned ‘CASSIDY, SEAN’. “I’ll be wanting it back when I get home, though. You and me, we got into this shit together – you’re not bailing on me now.”

Sean doesn’t have the strength to speak, so he just smiles, squeezing the tags with the hand attached to the drip.

He wants to tell Alex that he’s okay; he’s going to be patched up and shipped back to the mansion. That it’s really Alex who needs to concentrate on making it out now. That he, Hank, Charles and whoever else made it back will be waiting for him when he does. But all he can do is pray that Alex already knows.

Stryker is pointing at some of the cots around the room, the woman is opening a briefcase. “-The two sleeping on the far left, this one on the right-” as he speaks, men break off from the group, take something from the briefcase and head towards the sleeping forms on the cots indicated.

“-and this one.” Stryker points at Sean.

One of the men approaches, pushing past Alex to crouch down by the side of Sean not obstructed by the medic.

"What's that?" Alex asks, and only then does Sean notice the large syringe of green liquid in his hands. "Doc already gave him the pain relief – didn’t you?" Sean, too, looks to the medic for an explanation.

It’s as if the medic has gone deaf, completely lost to anything but the stitching he’s started on Sean’s leg. His brow is beaded with sweat and creased in concentration. Nostrils are flared; he’s biting on his lower lip. Eyes scrutinising but disconcertingly passive and sombre.

"We know what we're doing, Private," Stryker says by way of an explanation, a hint of condescension in his voice. "Go back to your barracks and gather your comrade's personal affects. That's an order." He adds, sensing Alex's reluctance.

Despite his own confusing feelings of dead, Sean tries to ease Alex's worry with a grin - the kind they used to throw each other during Advanced Individualized Training – _“S’got nothin' on Erik's regime," Alex would joke_ – but the man thrusts the needle into his arm without warning and he cries out in pain. The medic’s tools rattle slightly on their tray.

Sean feels queasy instantly. The liquid seems to fizzle through his arm, like fire does gasoline, leaving his skin tinged blue – like a tattoo needle has pierced the epidermis of his skin, leaving the ink to bleed through to lower layers – and covered in a light sheen of sweat. Is that normal? He looks up at the man imploringly. Only an apathetic gaze meets his unspoken questions as he retracts the syringe and walks away.

" _Now,_ soldier." Stryker prompts.

Sean starts; he’d spoken so loudly, but no one else seems to have noticed.

The two men stare at each other for a moment before Alex turns back to Sean and Stryker’s thin lips pull into a smirk. Alex takes the aviators off his head and leans close to Sean as he places them on the cot’s side table. He whispers, but to Sean it feels as though he’s shouting. “When Gitter gets back to base, I’ll bring him here and he’ll fix you up, quick as anything.” The desperation in his voice is palpable. This time, Sean can’t reply because he’s almost sure his lungs will burst from the lack of air in the room.

 _Inhale. Exhale. Inhale –_ Sean’s breaths become laboured as the icy liquid spreads through his body. His ribcage aches and stomach churns, his head lolls to one-side and darkness clouds the edges of his vision. Alex gives him a reassuring smile, oblivious to the tornado inside Sean, who feels his limbs numbing, his senses becoming muffled.

He tries to call for Alex as he leaves, for a nurse, the medic (still determinedly stitching), for anyone who can help. Bile rises up in his throat, leaving his attempts at noise wet and incomprehensible.

 _Allergic reaction,_ he thinks listlessly.

"Mr Stryker," the nurse has appeared by his side once again, this time clutching a bulky, plum-coloured folder. "Doctor Trask sent a number of papers ahead of your arrival-,” she tells him, motioning for him to follow her to the other end of the infirmary.

Stryker looks at Sean, and something about the way he watches Sean’s mouth open and close, his throat contract in an attempt to make noise, tells Sean that he knows exactly what’s happening.

Sean's eyes widened in mute horror as his dull thoughts cease.

They just, stop.

Like a match’s fire, doused by a tidal wave of the green liquid.

A wash of queasy pain rolls over him and, suddenly, Sean doesn’t feel anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please leave a comment letting me know your thoughts, it means a lot.
> 
> I wrote this in 2014 after seeing dofp and being lowkey highkey emo and bitter that sean died offscreen. He and alex were my favourite characters bc I had a knack for being drawn to characters with the least screen time.
> 
> At the time I was 14 and did a bit of research into military terms and general warfare but nowhere near enough that I can say this is an accurate portrayal of the vietnam war. So I'm sorry if this is egregiously inaccurate. I mostly want to post this bc it's been cluttering up my hardrive for the last five years and maybe other sean fans will appreciate it?
> 
> I remember I originally planned for this to be a fix-it fic wherein a minor characteristic of Sean's mutation is that his body burns up medication too fast for it to last long-term or something. The green liquid puts him in a death-like state until it wears off, where he wakes up in a trask industries freezer, escapes, and, in trying to get back to westchester, ends up in virginia where he runs into pietro, who has just got back from helping charles and co. they go on a road trip to get back to the mansion (just in time for a heartwarming reunion w alex) and yay everything is good and these poor guys get to be happy, dammit! I liked the idea of a sean & pietro dynamic bc they were like the same teenager set at different speeds.
> 
> so yeah, it wasn't originally supposed to be depressing. but since i never finished it, this is all we get. if anyone wants to steal this idea, feel free. I'd love to read it.


End file.
